


花言葉 (the language of flowers)

by seokjynerso



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hanahaki AU, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Language of Flowers, Magical Realism, Post-Break Up, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14471199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seokjynerso/pseuds/seokjynerso
Summary: ❝ love is watching someone die. ❞eduardo's body talked to him in the language of flowers, coughing up blue peony petals the same shade as laurel's hair.a hanahaki au one-shot.





	花言葉 (the language of flowers)

  _ **Ha**_ ** _nahaki Byou_**

◆ n. A disease of the human system that cough up flowers due to severe one-sided love. Its infection route is through contact with vomited flowers. In order to fully recover the disease, the one's love must be fulfilled.

_→ Origin: from Japanese '花吐き病', lit. 'flower throwing-up illness'._

 

─── ❖ ── ✦ ── ❖ ───

From the first golden strands of the dawn of life on earth, flowers have always been there. Their existence on its own is enough to adorn the world with beauty, but it was humans who had assigned them something richer: meanings. Flowers are transformed from fleeting blossoms into everlasting symbols. Every type of flower formed a lexicon for an unspoken language. The Japanese called this language hanakotoba, the language of flowers.

The impression of a flower is translated into a new word一whether it has a vivid colour, painful thorns or a supporting plant of majestic height, the unique qualities of a flower can make one feel something. These words are meant to convey feelings and other things in a beautiful, soundless communication. A violet means honesty. A hibiscus means gentleness. A white lily means purity, while an orange lily means hatred and revenge.

But Eduardo didn't know what the peonies in his hands meant.

The petals lay slicked with a sheen of saliva and blood like morning dew, as light as a feather, as delicate as a broken heart. They might look breathtaking and harmless at first sight, but they had been clawing at his throat for the whole morning and only now he managed to cough them all out. He blew away the last petal lingering on his lower lip and sighed to himself.

It would be an unfitting end for the petals to be disposed of in an undignified place, but Eduardo didn't have any other choice. He wanted to get rid of the incriminating evidence before Jon or Mark could come into the toilet. What a waste, what a waste for the peonies to disappear into a gush of water against ceramic as he flushed them away.

The peonies were killing him, but oh, God, were they pretty. So pretty, he grew to detest them the more he looked at them. The heart-shaped petals invoked in him both the liveliness of spring and the inevitable wilting of plucked flowers.

They were silky and light blue in colour, like Laurel's hair.

Feeling his shaking legs give way beneath him, Eduardo leaned against the tiled wall for support. The bright florescent light was stinging his watery eyes. He rubbed a knuckle against his heaving chest. There, somewhere in his chest cavity, blue peonies were in bloom. The doctors told him it was caused by Hanahaki Byou, a rare infection also known as the flower throwing-up disease.

Seeds planted by unrequited love will sprout from the heart and branch into the lungs, causing the sufferer to cough out flower petals or even whole flowers. The first time he coughed out peonies was surprisingly pleasant. Despite feeling as if something sharp had been ripped out of his chest, caressing the velvety petals in his palm brought back sweet past memories so vivid, it was as if Laurel was still there by his side.

If left untreated, his lungs would be filled completely with flowers and he would breathe nothing but the citrus scent of peonies. But at least, he thought, it'll be a tragically poetic way to die, to be suffocated by the intoxication of things he loved too much to let go.

Blooming amidst the flowers were his feelings of helplessness, sadness, rage and fear. Eduardo and Laurel were deeply in love for years一some said they were too tangled together to be separated一but when she decided to end the relationship to pursue their separate ambitions, his love became unrequited.

She moved on. He didn't.

One day, his love would never be returned again. It had become permanently unrequited. Laurel didn't get to realise her childhood dream as an actress and director. Everything beautiful had died along with her in a place so close yet so far away from him.

Edd's house.

Eduardo remembered climbing over the fence quickly and seeing her lovely face marred by blood and dirt. Laurel maintaining her weakened gaze on him and how her eyes cloud and gloss over with time. How her skin grew paler. How her murderer watched nonchalantly with a silver ribbon of cigarette smoke dissipating under its sole. It was a sight he could never erase, resurfacing in his mind at random moments.

"You killed Laurel. You killed her." he said, almost whimpering as he approached the murderer, "How could you一"

"Why did you一"

"Why her一"

Eduardo fully understood what had happened to him. He'd attended her funeral, helped carrying her for the last time before lying her to rest in her grave. But why was he still coughing up flower petals even after she was gone?

Why couldn't he let her go?

─── ❖ ── ✦ ── ❖ ───

_"Why are you sad?" asked a spunky young girl. She smoothed her dark-coloured clothes and messy short blue hair before sitting under the tree next to him._

_At that time, they were six or seven. Eduardo was hiding his face behind his knees, still reeling from the incident that had just happened last class. The pent feelings inside him were in dire need for an outlet. When he saw her, he quickly opened up while silently hoping that she wouldn't ridicule him for it. To her he lamented, in the best way a small child could, the injustice of how someone would choose a decadent piece over an artwork that actually showcased one's fine-honed skills._

_"You don't need to be sad about it. I love your painting." Laurel said, balling a hand into a fist, "You'll always be the number one in my heart,"_

_Eduardo looked up from his knees, staring at her with large, deep-set eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked._

_"Yup!" she nodded enthusiastically, "We'll be the best in the future. I'll be the number one actress and you'll be the number one painter, okay?" she extended a pinkie finger towards him, "Promise?"_

_Shyly but surely, Eduardo linked his own pinkie finger around hers._

─── ❖ ── ✦ ── ❖ ───

"Why did you do this to yourself?"

Jon entered the living room to see Eduardo coughing violently, his body convulsing hard on the floor. He tried to control his coughs in Jon's presence, but he ended up flowing more heart-shaped petals from his mouth. "I've told you so many times, but you wouldn't listen." Jon whined, patting his older housemate on the back while brushing the scattered petals from his face, "You deserve a new chance at love. Don't do this. Don't."

"I can still manage this." Eduardo said between shallow gasps for air. A hand was kept pressed against his chest, bracing himself for the next wave of peonies. His muscles were strained from prolonged coughing. "Now, leave before I smash your face."

Jon shook his head. He looked broken with his hands trembling and his beady eyes crying. "You can't ask me to let you die." he cried out.

"I'm not dying!" Jon's response sent Eduardo into a rage-induced coughing fit. A fresh batch of blue petals coated in frothy pink blood was spilled all over the floor. He wanted to choke Jon's noisy pipe shut. He raised his hands over his head in a threatening manner, but he could only hold them up for a few minutes before losing his strength. His lungs, Eden's vine-gripped twin gardens, were burning.

"That's a lot of petals." Jon said. His surroundings had turned into a dreamy blue sea soft and silky under his feet. "You should consider surgery."

If only things were that simple.

To undergo surgery means removing the seeds of love planted firmly in his heart. Erasing his feelings for Laurel forever. He'd taught himself to welcome the continuous pain just to keep the fragrance of her memory alive. The peony petals were living and rotting at the same time after being separated from their roots. He, too, was living and dying without his root, his anchor. He wanted to stay with the feeling and memory forever even if that means smothering himself slowly with them.

It was ironic how his reason to live became his reason to die, but jagged branches cutting through lung tissue were nothing compared to the pain of knowing that he would never have her.

Agonizing days turned to weeks. It took Eduardo another incident painting his world black to give him a glimpse of clarity, making him take a step back from it all to comprehend, at last, what his body was trying to tell him.

It talked to him in the language of flowers.

Peony is the flower of bravery.

There's nothing braver than facing the truth and accepting it. Fighting against the rushing current would ultimately accomplish nothing. A part of him still denied the fact that Laurel is gone forever. He was afraid of the Laurel-shaped emptiness in his life. He clung to the beautiful pain as the last connection he had to her.

But denial won't help pull us out of the darkness. The truth is, absence will always leave a mark in our heart, no matter we loved or hated the person.

Blue is the colour of Laurel's hair, the colour of Jon's shirt, the colour of Jon's lips after he said 'something'一

Blue is the colour of death, and death is less about holding on and more about finding peace, reconciling, letting go.

Death is a part of life. It's inevitable. Every story has a beginning, peak and ending. Life follows the same pattern as well. It's how life works; flowers bloom and wilt, mountains wear down, planets collide, stars burn out.

Death is a constant. He could hold on to the pain for as long as he wanted, but in the end, whatever happened in the past will never change. The events of his life might be beyond his control, but he still had one more power left.

He could choose to be free.

Two weeks after Jon's funeral, Eduardo chose to undergo a non-invasive Hanahaki disease surgery. Mark acknowledged the decision with a careful hug and a thankful tear in his eye.

The thought of letting go without looking back scared him. It'll be like losing Laurel all over again. Soon, the doctors will cut him open and he'll no longer feel butterfly flutters in his heart every time he thinks of her. He'll no longer look back at their twenty years' worth of memories through the lenses of a lover.

He might forget what it was like to love her, but in some other ways, she'll always be there. He'll have a scar to remind him how he would give up his life for love.


End file.
